I bought a Audi certified used 05 allroad around a year and half ago and recently had an accident where I put a nice scratch in the plastic on the rear bumper backing out of my garage – nothing big wasn’t going more than a couple miles an hour but left a mark. Wanted to fix the car correctly but found out you cannot replace just the plastic piece so to bring the car back to 'like' new I had to replace the entire bumper cover. When the shop I had do the work started to look at the car they immediately called and told me the car had been in a rear accident on the driver’s side. I was surprised as the dealer had told me the car was never in an accident but the real shock was that it was not repaired correctly and actually was missing components and had a compromised crush bumper. I am still waiting for the bill to see what is will cost to put it back together ‘correctly’ but am interested on an opinion on if the certification processes should have found this (which the body guys said anyone looking would have noticed it rather easily as it had a ‘shimmed’ connection point to make it work) and corrected it before they sold the car as certified? Is there any recourse available in this type of situation? Bought the car from a dealer 200 miles away and have a had a few minor issues that they have never resolved and have been anything but impressed with the service / communication post sale but this is something entirely different. Would be interested to hear thoughts

Pics attached

 

I have only one thought, and sorry if it's not a helpful one...I'm not surprised to see this considering when I had my bumper (cover only) replaced at a dealer, they installed the cover over broken plastic brackets figuring I wouldn't notice. Seems the dealers are using these plastic bumper covers to save themselves money. Sorry again for the negativity of this post, but fixer beware!

 

Its a known fact that most dealers do not do the needed CPO inspection. Inessence they commit a fraud by stating to the insurance company that the car is OK. There are many stories of dealers sellin cars as CPO that were damaged.

You need to document it and presnet it to the OWNER, not the sales rep at the dealer.

 

I'd also contact AOA and share the documentation with them. I've seen CPO cars that had clearly not undergone the type of inspection said to be performed. Almost bought one before I figured out it had been hit. (paint drip in the door jamb tipped me off)

 

Thanks for the input. The really frustrating thing is the car was purchased for my wife and kids to travel in and to have a compromised safety component is terrible. It's not that it had work done per say but that it did not have the work done it should have.

 

If you want a "smoking gun", find out if there is an accident listed on the Carfax report that pre-dates the CPO certification.

Otherwise, the risk you run is that they're going to say that there is no way to prove this didn't happen after you bought the car.

The checklist for what is covered is available on Audi's website. It does list the bumpers, but of course it doesn't say they're going to pull the cover off to look.